Monday, May 2, 2011

It was 2007 and me and Feaver had just started playing WoW. We started humans & were completing quests at the Abbey. We finished our Kobold slaying and headed to Goldshire. Opening the map & only seeing Elwynn and Stormwind I remember thinking "this place is huge!" We did our various quests and finally got a chain that began a very confusing adventure I laugh at now... Elmore's Task

A blacksmith in Elwynn gives you info on a job. This dwarf in SW needs a delivery made. We go find the dwarf (after I got lost repeatedly) and pick up Stormpike's Delivery. Now let's read:

"The Stormpikes are a respected dwarven clan, and are well known for their fine and discerning tastes. So it's no wonder that Gringer Stormpike, a Mountaineer of Ironforge, commissioned me to craft him a weapon.

The weapon is finished, but... Mountaineer Stormpike is far away, in distant Loch Modan. If you plan on traveling to the north, can you deliver this package to him?

My last message from Mountaineer Stormpike said he's stationed at the northern guard tower in Loch Modan."

Ok so we go north! Open map, waitttt a minute... how to you go north of SW!!!!!! There's nothing north! Took us fooorever to discover the tram. We finally take it to IF. I was completely amazed at how huge Azeroth was. We figured out how to leave Ironforge & started asking how to get to Loch from various passersbys. "Go West" "Go North" Directions we were given we're usually hit or miss. We did finally make it to Valley of the Kings. But the quest said Loch Modan... we went on road we were told, but no Loch!?! Finally someone rode by on a horse, I messaged them & pleaded for help. I explained we're new and have this quest that gives NO directions & we had followed the road but ended up in a Valley. The person took pity on us & personally escorted us into Thelsamar.

I learned 2 very important things: 1. Blizzard sucks with directions and 2. Heroes of Azeroth aren't always NPCs.

We've discussed this alot in vent on & off but I thought it'd be a great forum discussion. So think of "What was your most memorable noobie moment?" and tell us here!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

In what is tantamount to Blizzard saying, "Hey guys, get ready for a patch on Tuesday," official patch notes for patch 4.1: Rise of the Zandalari are now available, as well as a feature list that will be included in the next update. Get ready for:

Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms

Two new level-85 heroics

Guild Finder

Guild Challenges

And more!

Patch 4.1 will soon be upon us, and it's high time we dig into the meat of this patch to digest the new content, features, and official patch notes. The rise of the Zandalari is happening soon on a realm near you, so make sure you've read up on the new level-85 Stranglethorn quest line, as well as the updated dungeons of Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman -- now suitable for five level-85 players with an average item level of 346 or higher. All-new epic gear, rare mounts, pets, and other interesting treasures await you, should you be able to rise to the challenge of the Zandalari!

If you've found yourself waiting in dungeon queues longer than you'd like, we have a new system, Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms, you should know about. The Dungeon Finder will be offering an additional incentive to players of underrepresented class roles. With this feature we hope to get you into the action faster.

We've also built a new Guild Finder feature into the game interface and plan to expand upon its functionality in upcoming patches. Whether you're a player looking for a guild, or a guild leader looking to recruit, this system facilitates those activities. We're continuing to update, improve, and adjust the Guild Advancement system and want to make sure you're given the tools to find and maintain a fun guild.

If you're already tackling content with your guildmates, you'll probably be interested in the upcoming Guild Challenges. By completing dungeons, raids, and Rated Battlegrounds in guild groups, you'll attain new achievements, accrue gold for the Guild Vault, and earn guild experience above the current daily cap. We plan to introduce more Guild Challenges in future updates.

The days when great troll empires stretched across ancient Kalimdor are long past. Millennia of war and internal strife have stripped these nations of their power, lands, and glory. As Azeroth recovers from the destruction of the Cataclysm, the world's divided troll populations face a bleak future. These dark times have spurred the trolls of the Zandalar, the historically wise and scholarly tribe from which all trolls originated, to take drastic action. They have embarked on a bold crusade to save their race by uniting trolls into a single mighty empire. With the Zandalari's aid, the fallen capitals of the Gurubashi and Amani nations-Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman-are already rebuilding, replenishing their forces for a bloody campaign to expand their territories.

Yet Vol'jin and his Darkspear trolls are not aligned with the Zandalari. They have sworn to stand with their Horde comrades-and even work with the Alliance-should the trolls ignite a new war on Azeroth. Soon, Vol'jin might be forced to act on his promise, for if the Gurubashi and Amani are left to their own devices, the world will know the legendary strength and savagery of the ancient troll empires once again.

Guild Challenges

Built into the Info panel of the guild user interface, Guild Challenges are weekly tasks guild groups can tackle for additional guild experience, achievements, and gold. At the top of the guild user interface Info pane, a new Guild Challenges section is displayed and broken into three categories: Dungeons, Raids, and Rated Battlegrounds. Any guild group will qualify for Guild Challenges credit and there is a set number of times each challenge can be completed per week.

Guild Finder

Guild Finder is a new system designed to enable easier and faster guild recruitment. Guild leaders and players who are looking for a guild to call home will use the Guild Finder to meet one another and begin communications that can lead to a prosperous membership. Whether you're a guild leader looking to fill your ranks or a player looking for a guild that meets your strictest requirements, the Guild Finder provides an easy way to make new friends!

Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms

A new system intended to lower queue times, Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms offers additional rewards for queuing as the currently least represented role. To be eligible for the additional rewards you must solo queue for a random level-85 Heroic in the role that is currently being Called to Arms, and complete the dungeon by killing the final boss. Every time you hit these requirements (there is no daily limit) you'll receive a goodie bag that will contain some gold, a chance at a rare gem, a chance at a flask/potion, a good chance of receiving a non-combat pet (including cross faction pets), and a very rare chance at receiving a mount.

General

Conquest Points are now purchasable from the Valor Quartermasters at 250 Conquest Points per 250 Valor Points.

Honor Points are now purchasable from the Justice Trade Goods vendors at 250 Honor Points per 375 Justice Points.

Justice Points are now purchasable from the Honor Trade Goods vendors at 250 Justice Points per 375 Honor Points.

Resilience scaling has been modified for linear returns, as opposed to increasing returns. Under the new formula, going from 30 resilience to 40 resilience gives players the same increase to survivability as going from 0 to 10. Resilience now scales in the same way armor and magic resistances do. A player with 32.5% damage reduction from resilience in 4.0.6 should see their damage reduction unchanged in 4.1. Those with less than 32.5% will gain slightly. Those with more will lose some damage reduction, increasingly so as their resilience climbs.

A dead player can now be resurrected by targeting them using the Party or Raid Frame even if they have released. No more hunting for corpses.

Achievements

A new feat of strength with an associated title, "the Camel-Hoarder", has been added for players that have bested Dormus and obtained the Reins of the Grey Riding Camel -- because there must always be a Camel-Hoarder.

PvP

The following Battleground achievements have been permanently removed from the game, as they do not function correctly with the achievement tracking system: Guild Gankin' in Gilneas, Guild Gulch, The Peak of Perfection, The Perfect Guild Storm, Storming the Beach.

Rated Battlegrounds

The achievements to win 100 rated Battlegrounds have been renamed to "Veteran of the Alliance" and "Veteran of the Horde", and now award those titles.

Achievements to win 300 rated Battlegrounds have been added, awarding the "Warbound" and "Warbringer" titles to the Alliance and Horde respectively.

Arathi Basin

The achievement "We Had It All Along *cough*" now requires the player to win Arathi Basin by 50 points or less, up from 10 points or less.

The Battle for Gilneas

The achievement "Jugger Not" now requires the player to win The Battle for Gilneas by 100 points or less, up from 10 points or less.

The achievement "Out of the Fog" requires the player to defend 2 bases in a single battle, down from 3.

The achievement "One Two Three You Don't Know About Me" requires the player to assault 2 bases in a single battle, down from 3.

The achievement "Not Your Average PUG'er" now requires 10 total flag defenses, down from 50.

The achievement "Battle for Gilneas All-Star" now requires a single flag assault and flag defense in a battle, down from 2.

Achievements Bug Fixes

The guild rated Battleground title achievements should now properly be awarded.

Valor and Conquest Points are displaying the correct values when tracked for achievements.

Several persistent ground effects now display different visuals for hostile and friendly players. The following spells have the same visual effects for friendly players, but new alternate visuals for hostile players: Ring of Frost, Consecration, Desecration, Wild Mushroom, Flare, Ice Trap, Power Word: Barrier, Smoke Bomb, and Hand of Gul'dan. As a general rule, the alternate effects have a red tint or hue indicating they are created by an enemy player.

Death Knights

Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.

Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.

Talent Specializations

Blood

Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.

Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.

Frost

Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.

Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.

Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers. In addition, Howling Blast now has a facing requirement.

Unholy

Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.

Rage of Rivendare again applies 15/30/45% additional damage to Plague, Scourge, and Festering Strike, up from 12/24/36%.

Glyphs

Glyph of Raise Ally is now Glyph of Death Gate, and makes Death Gate cast 60% faster.

Death Knight Bug Fixes

Runeforging no longer displays a skill-up UI element.

Druids

Lacerate bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased initial damage done.

Efflorescence has a new spell effect.

Enrage no longer increases physical damage taken.

Lifebloom's bloom effect has been reduced by 20%.

Prowl has a new icon.

Savage Defense has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid's attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.

Stampeding Roar's duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40% and is no longer cancelled by cancelling shapeshift form.

Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6, and is now on trainable at level 18 (training cost has been reduced). In addition, the bonus threat from this ability has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.

Swipe (Cat) damage has been doubled.

Thrash bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.

Druids now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Tranquility.

Talent Specializations

Balance

Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.

Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.

Feral

Berserk is no longer on the global cooldown.

Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.

Efflorescence has been redesigned. It creates a healing zone at the feet of a Swiftmend target, but this healing zone now restores health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 second for 7 seconds. This periodic effect now also benefits from spell haste, but the individual ticks cannot be critical effects. In addition, Living Seed is no longer a prerequisite talent for Efflorescence.

Malfurion's Gift now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes.

Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.

Glyphs

Glyph of Rake is now Glyph of Pounce, which increases the range of Pounce by 3 yards.

Druid Bug Fixes

The troll druid models for Flight Form and Swift Flight Form has slimmed down to be more in scale with other druid flight forms.

Druids should no longer have UI issues after leaving a vehicle.

Hunters

Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped.

Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect.

Master's Call now has a new spell effect.

Multi-Shot damage has been increased by 250%.

Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter's level, rather than 3 levels below.

Pets

The Feed Pet ability now instantly heals 50% of the pet's health. Cannot be used in combat. Requires diet-appropriate food.

The Happiness/Pet Loyalty System has been removed. Hunters will no longer have to manage Happiness for their pets, and the previous damage bonus for pets being happy will now be baseline for all tamed pets.

Bloodthirsty no longer generates Happiness.

Carrion Feeder no longer restores Happiness.

Guard Dog no longer causes Growl to generate additional Happiness.

Summoned pets now start with 100 focus, up from 0.

Glyphs

Glyph of Mend Pet is now Glyph of Lesser Proportion, which decreases the size of the pet slightly.

Hunter Bug Fixes

Hunters will no longer automatically acquire a new target if the current target dies in the middle of a cast.

Aimed Shot and Steady Shot should no longer start casting Auto Shot on a new target when the "Stop Auto Attack" option enabled.

Auto Shot now automatically turns off until reactivated once Freezing Trap is cast on an enemy player.

Deterrence: The area damage of the paladin ability Hammer of the Righteous will no longer hit hunters with Deterrence active.

Distracting Shot and Multi-Shot are now properly 40-yard range.

Intervene (Tenacity pet ability) range has been increased so that the pet will properly intercept attacks.

Multi-Shot now properly has a 1-second global cooldown.

Scatter Shot's disorient effect should no longer sometimes be broken by the hunter's Auto Shot.

Mages

Arcane Blast cast time has been reduced to 2.0 seconds, down from 2.35 seconds. In addition, the stacking effect of Arcane Blast now increases the damage done by Arcane Explosion, and Arcane Explosion does not consume that effect.

Arcane Explosion damage has been increased by 30%.

Arcane Missiles damage has been increased by 13%.

Blizzard damage has been increased by 70%.

Frost Armor has been reworked:

It now reduces physical damage taken by 15%, instead of providing 20% additional armor.

The Chilled proc from Frost Armor can no longer proc Fingers of Frost.

The attack speed slow from the Chilled proc is now 20%, down from 25%, but it also affects ranged attack speed.

Frost Armor also no longer increases Frost resistance.

Frostbolt damage has been increased by 10%.

Talent Specializations

Arcane

Arcane Barrage damage has been increased by 13%.

Improved Arcane Explosion now also reduces the mana cost of Arcane Explosion by 25/50%.

Fire

Combustion no longer has a global cooldown.

Ignite is no longer triggered from periodic critical effects.

Frost

Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.

Ice Barrier base damage value has been increased by approximately 120%. In addition, the benefit from spell power has been increased by approximately 8%.

The root effect from Shattered Barrier now shares diminishing returns with the root from Improved Cone of Cold.

Aura Mastery: This ability no longer increases the benefit granted by Crusader Aura.

Illuminated Healing shield duration is now 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds. In addition, Illuminated Healing has been increased to provide 1.5% effect per mastery, up from 1.25%.

Walk in the Light (passive) removes the cooldown of Word of Glory.

Protection

Divine Guardian cooldown is now 3 minutes, up from 2.

Grand Crusader will now generate a charge of Holy Power if the Avenger Shield it procs is used within 6 seconds.

Sacred Duty can now be activated by Avenger's Shield in addition to Judgements. The effect now lasts 10 seconds, down from 15.

Retribution

Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets.

Sacred Shield's internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30.

Paladin Bug Fixes

Avenger's Shield can no longer be blocked.

Judgements of the Just debuff can no longer trigger talents and other effects.

Seal of Truth: Fixed a tooltip error that stated swings at targets with Censure fully stacked dealt 9% weapon damage. They actually dealt 15% damage and the tooltip has been updated accordingly.

Priests

Divine Aegis duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.

Dispel Magic can only be used on the casting priest as a baseline effect.

Priests now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope.

Holy Fire damage has been increased to be approximately 30% higher than Smite.

Inner Will and Inner Fire now last until canceled.

Mind Sear damage has been doubled.

Power Word: Shield duration has been reduced to 15 seconds, down from 30.

Talent Specializations

Discipline

Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.

Atonement now works with Holy Fire in addition to Smite.

The direct damage portion of Holy Fire can now trigger Evangelism.

Power Word: Barrier's cooldown has been increased to 3 minutes, up from 2, and its effect has been reduced to 25%, down from 30%.

It is now possible to remove Weakened Soul effects that were a result of another priest's Power Word: Shield through Strength of Soul.

Holy

Absolution (new passive) enables priests to use Dispel Magic on up to 2 harmful effects on friendly targets.

Chakra now lasts until canceled, up from 1 minute.

Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%. In addition, it has a new spell effect.

Surge of Light can now also trigger from Binding Heal.

Glyphs

Glyph of Divine Accuracy now also affects Holy Fire in addition to Smite.

Priest Bug Fixes

Surge of Light is now being applied to Smite at rank 1.

Rogues

Recuperate base effect now heals 3% per tick, up from 2%.

Stealth base cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10, and the movement penalty from being in Stealth has been removed.

Tricks of the Trade now has a 100-yard range, up from 20.

Talent Specializations

Combat

Improved Recuperate now adds 0.5%/1% to the health restoration effect of Recuperate, down from 1%/2%.

Subtlety

Cheat Death now reduces damage taken by 80% while in effect, down from 90%. Its internal cooldown has been raised to 90 seconds, up from 60.

Nightstalker now reduces the cooldown of Stealth by 2/4 seconds, and instead of negating the movement penalty from Stealth, it adds a 5/10% movement speed bonus (stacking with other effects) while Stealthed.

Shaman

Fire Nova has been redesigned and decoupled from shaman Fire totems. Instead, it now pulses the Fire Nova effect from each target that is afflicted by the shaman's own Flame Shock debuff. It now damages all enemies except the target hit by Flame Shock. The ability's cooldown has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 10.

Grounding Totem cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 15.

Earthquake is no longer a channeled spell. It now has a 2-second cast time, lasts for 10 seconds, and has a 10-second cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by 40% from its channeled version.

Enhancement

Improved Fire Nova has been redesigned and replaced by a talent called Seasoned Winds. When an enemy spell cast is successfully prevented with Wind Shear, the shaman gains magical resistance (in an amount equal to what a protection totem/aura would grant, stacking with such buffs) to the spell school(s) of the interrupted spell (except for Holy spells), lasting 10 seconds.

Restoration

Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.

Deep Healing now benefits all heals, not just direct heals.

Earth Shield healing done by Restoration shaman has been reduced by 20%.

Nature's Blessing has been improved to 6/12/18% bonus direct healing on Earth Shielded targets, up from 5/10/15%.

Spirit Link Totem (new talent) reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3-minute cooldown.

Glyphs

Glyph of Grounding Totem: The increased cooldown of Grounding Totem applied by this glyph has been reduced to 35 seconds, down from 45 seconds.

Shaman Bug Fixes

The tooltips for shaman healing spells are now displaying correct values when points are distributed into any rank of the Spark of Life talent.

Warlocks

Dark Intent: The friendly target of this ability now receives 1% (stacking 3 times to 3%) periodic spell damage and healing bonus instead of 3% (stacking 3 times to 9%). The casting Warlock still receives 3% (stacking 3 times to 9%).

Rain of Fire damage has been increased by 25%.

Seed of Corruption damage has been increased by 20%.

Soulstone can now be used in combat to resurrect a targeted dead player.

Talent Specializations

Affliction

Haunt damage has been increased by 30%.

Shadow Mastery (passive) has been increased to 30%, up from 25%.

Unstable Affliction damage done when it is dispelled has been doubled, but this damage can no longer be critical.

Demonology

Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter.

Pets

Doomguard's damage has been increased by 50%. The Doomguard is intended to be the best guardian for single-target damage, and the Infernal the best when there are multiple targets.

Lash of Pain (Succubus) damage now scales with level, reducing the damage done at lower levels such that it will deal 50% damage at level 20, and 100% damage at level 80 and above.

Shadow Bite (Felhunter) damage and effect has doubled.

Glyphs

Glyph of Soul Swap now increases the cooldown of Soul Swap by 15 seconds, up from 10 seconds.

Warriors

Charge and Intercept no longer have diminishing returns on their stun effects.

Colossus Smash now ignores 50% of a hostile player's armor (PvP), but continues to ignore 100% of a non-player character's armor (PvE).

Heroic Throw is now available from trainers at level 20.

Heroic Leap is no longer on the global cooldown, similar to other warrior movement abilities.

Inner Rage is now available at level 56.

Intercept now has a 1.5-second stun, down from 3 seconds.

Pummel is now usable in all stances.

Rallying Cry (new ability) is available from trainers at level 83. It temporarily grants the warrior and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. It has no cost, no stance requirements, and is not on the global cooldown. It has a 3-minute cooldown, but also shares a cooldown with Last Stand.

Shield Bash has been removed from the game.

Spell Reflection cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.

Whirlwind now has its cooldown reduced by 6 seconds when it deals damage to 4 or more targets. The Whirlwind effect caused by Bladestorm remains unchanged.

Talent Specializations

Arms

Improved Hamstring now reduces the global cooldown on Hamstring by 0.25/0.5 seconds in addition to its current effects.

Juggernaut no longer adds 2 seconds to the Charge stun, but instead lowers the cooldown of Charge by 2 seconds (to 13 seconds total without the glyph).

Lambs to the Slaughter now causes Mortal Strike to refresh Rend in addition to its current effects.

Strikes of Opportunity value per point of mastery has been increased by 10%.

Fury

Precision (passive) now increase auto-attack damage by 40%, in addition to the 3% hit it offers currently.

Unshackled Fury now only grants 2 base points of mastery, down from 8.

Protection

Shield Mastery no longer affects the cooldown of Spell Reflection, however, it now allows Shield Block to proc a second aura that reduces magic damage by 7/14/20% for 6 seconds.

Gag Order now applies to Pummel and Heroic Throw, giving these abilities a 100% chance to silence the target for 3 seconds. In addition, Gag Order lowers the cooldown of Heroic Throw by 30 seconds.

Glyphs

Glyph of Spell Reflection reduces the cooldown of Spell Reflection by 5 seconds, up from 1 second.

Dungeons & Raids

Rise of the Zandalari

Zul'Aman is now a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon. Players with a minimum average item level of 346 or higher can access this dungeon via the Dungeon Finder.

Zul'Gurub is now a level-85 5-player Heroic dungeon. Players with a minimum average item level of 346 or higher can access this dungeon via the Dungeon Finder.

Both Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman exist in a separate tier in the Dungeon Finder above the current level-85 Heroic dungeons. Players can randomly queue for either dungeon by selecting the Rise of the Zandalari setting.

Dungeon Finder

The Dungeon Finder now attempts to avoid putting damage-dealing classes with the same armor type in a group.

Players will now get bonus rewards 7 times per week (while earning less than 980 Valor Points) instead of once a day when using Dungeon Finder.

When there is only 1 player left in a Dungeon Finder group, they will now be able to queue for replacements as long as they queue within 2 minutes or stay in the dungeon.

The Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms will now identify which class role is currently the least represented in the queue, and offer them additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder queue and completing a random level-85 Heroic dungeon.

The least represented class icon will show within the Dungeon Finder to indicate the role that is eligible to earn the bonus reward.

Players must queue solo with the currently indicated least represented class (by the system) and complete the dungeon up to and including the final boss in order to be eligible for the bonus reward.

The bonus reward will be displayed to eligible (system identified as least represented) classes within the UI.

Once the dungeon is completed the eligible player will receive a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries (account bound) with various potential rewards including: gold, rare gems, non-combat pets, and (very rare) mounts.

Blackrock Caverns

Aura of Arcane Haste now has a clearer visual on the bearer of the aura.

Bound Flames in the Karsh Steelbender encounter no longer create Lava Pools when they are killed.

The Short Throw ability used by Twilight Sadists has had its range reduced to 10 yards.

Blackwing Descent

Atramedes

Searing Flames now causes a 6-second cooldown on Modulation.

Searing Flames no longer increases Sound on players.

Players should no longer be able to avoid the first period damage tick of Searing Flame, and Searing Flame now ticks every 2 seconds. The damage of Searing Flame has been increased to compensate for it ticking less frequently.

The Bile-O-Tron 800 in the Chimaeron encounter is now more resistant to being knocked offline many times in rapid succession.

Flash Bomb (Golem Sentry ability) now has a more clear warning visual.

Magmaw now triggers a raid emote when summoning Lava Parasites.

Maloriak

Maloriak now has a brief windup before beginning to channel Arcane Storm, slightly increasing the amount of time players have before the spell begins to deal damage.

Further improvements have been made in the Maloriak encounter to avoid Flash Freeze targeting the tanks.

Nefarian's End

The damage of Shadowflame Barrage has been reduced by 15% (10-player normal and Heroic difficulty only).

The damage of Tail Lash has been reduced by 20% (10-player normal and Heroic difficulty only).

The Bastion of Twilight

Dragon Siblings

Blackout can now be dispelled on Heroic difficulty.

Cho'gall

The health of Blood of the Old God on 10-player Heroic difficulty has been lowered by roughly 20%.

The health of Darkened Creations on 10-player Heroic difficulty has been lowered by roughly 20%.

The corruption gained from Corruption: Accelerated on 10-player Heroic difficulty has been lowered slightly.

Knockbacks and Deathgrip can now be used to interrupt players that are converted by Cho'gall.

Each challenge can be completed a set number of times per week. Guild groups participating in level-appropriate Heroic or normal difficulty dungeons and raids, or rated Battlegrounds, will automatically qualify for challenge credit.

Each time a Guild Challenge is completed, the guild will be awarded experience and gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault, as well as the opportunity to earn all-new achievements. A popup or "toast" will be displayed to confirm a Guild Challenge has been completed (similar to achievement alerts).

Guild experience earned via Guild Challenges will be awarded above the daily cap. The experience cap will move forward relative to the amount of experience obtained through completing Guild Challenges (similar to rested experience for characters).

Guilds already at the level cap will be awarded substantially more gold in place of guild experience.

Gold rewards are deposited into the guild bank once the guild reaches level 5. The text for the Cash Flow guild perk has been updated appropriately.

Guild Finder

A new Guild Finder button will now appear on the Micro Menu for guild leaders, as well as players without a guild.

A Guild Interests field allows players to form a guild around common interests: Questing, Dungeons, Raids, PvP, and Role Playing.

An Availability field allows players to note whether or not weekdays or weekends are better for playing.

The Class Roles field allows players to indicate the role or roles they are capable of, and willing to fill.

A Comment box is also available for supplying additional information.

Once a player has filled out the Guild Interests field, the Browse Guilds tab allows them to find guilds actively recruiting via the Guild Finder. Guilds listed here are displayed according to common interests.

The Requests tab tracks all recruitment requests submitted by an unguilded player, or submitted to the leader of a selected guild.

The Guild Perk, Cash Flow, no longer prints out text to the Chat Log. Instead, the daily amount deposited is shown in the Guild Vault Money Log. In addition, players can view the weekly contribution in a new window at the bottom of the Money Log.

Two new custom guild tabards have been added as Guild Rewards. The tabards are account bound and offer a bonus to gaining guild reputation.

The Reins of the Dark Phoenix, purchased from the Guild Vendor, has had its art improved. It's now less transparent and indisputably more awesome.

The amount of guild experience rewarded for rated Battleground guild group wins has been dramatically increased.

Players are now rewarded guild experience for Honorable Kills in the field.

Players are now rewarded guild experience for Battleground wins in Battleground brackets up to level 80.

Arena teams are now awarded guild experience for wins. The entire team must be members of the same guild to earn this experience.

Items

Account Bound Items

Many "Account Bound" heirlooms are now labeled as "Battle.net Account Bound", meaning that they can also be traded or mailed to characters that are on different World of Warcraft accounts under the same Battle.net account.

Mail sent to characters on the same Battle.net account now arrives instantaneously, as it does for the same World of Warcraft account.

Mailing account-bound items to characters of the opposite faction on the same Battle.net account will now correctly translate faction-specific items to their appropriate equivalent.

All trade goods available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors have had their prices reduced by 50%.

Maelstrom Crystals are now available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors.

The PvP Horde and Alliance trinkets have a new spell effect.

Item Sets

The current damage-dealing death knight 4-piece raid set bonus now also grants increased attack power when Killing Machine triggers, as well as when the death knight gains Death Runes).

The current Holy paladin 4-piece raid set bonus now grants 540 Spirit for 6 seconds after casting Holy Shock.

The current healing priest 4-piece raid set bonus no longer requires a target to be under the effects of Weakened Soul for the priest to receive the Spirit bonus. Instead the benefit will be granted each time the priest's Penance spell heals a target.

The caster shaman 4-piece PvP set bonus now reduces the cooldown of Grounding Totem by 3 seconds, up from 1.5.

Item Bug Fixes

Players are now properly seated on stone drake and wind drake models.

Stone drakes no longer clip into the ground when attacked.

Many pieces of crafted epic armor have had sockets added.

Furious Gladiator's Greatsword (and other swords with the same model) no longer disappear when wielded.

Random enchantment items (of the bear, of the whale, etc.) no longer use obsolete item modifiers such as attack power or spell power.

Professions

All major cities will now have every type of profession trainer and their associated trade supply vendors.

New Cooking and Fishing Dailies have been added to Darnassus, Ironforge, Thunder Bluff, and Undercity.

Alchemy

Flask of Steelskin now grants 450 Stamina, up from 300. The Mixology bonus for alchemists remains at 120 Stamina.

Archaeology

Seven new rare items have been added.

Players now have a much smaller chance of getting a dig site for a race for which they have completed all rare finds.

PvP

The rate at which Honor Points are earned has been doubled.

Arenas

Arena matchmaking can now extend beyond a team's Battlegroup.

Battlegrounds

Battleground raid leaders can now move players from other realms among raid subgroups.

The Focused Assault and Brutal Assault buffs have changed.

After 3 minutes of both teams having the flag, both flag carriers will get Focused Assault, which increases damage taken by 10%.

Every minute afterward, an additional stack will be applied to increase damage taken by an additional 10%.

After 7 minutes, Brutal Assault will be applied in place of Focused Assault. In additional to the damage debuff, this debuff also caps the player's movement speed at 100%. The damage taken debuff works the same and will add 10% to the debuff up to a maximum of 100% damage taken.

Arathi Basin

Arathi Basin is now available as a 10v10-player rated Battleground.

Flags should now cap in 7 seconds, down from 8.

The Battle for Gilneas

Flags should now cap in 7 seconds, down from 8.

Graveyard Changes

Players who die at a control point that they own will now be teleported to the next closest graveyard, instead of the one at which they died.

If a player's team owns the Mine and Waterworks, and dies at Waterworks, they will be teleported to the Mine.

If an Alliance player's team only owns Lighthouse, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at their base.

If a Horde player's team owns Waterworks and Mine, and dies at Lighthouse, they will respawn at Waterworks.

Twin Peaks

Graveyard Changes

Players will now only spawn at their base graveyard when they die in the enemy base.

Defending players will respawn at the middle graveyard.

Midfield players will respawn at the middle graveyard.

Attacking players will respawn at their base graveyard.

Warsong Gulch

The graveyards outside both bases have been lowered in elevation and are no longer on the same plane as the main flag room entrances to either respective base.

Quests & Creatures

A handful of quests have been added to Northern Barrens to provide more level 18-20 content. Look for new quests at Nozzlepot's Outpost and Darsok's Outpost.

Loot from the creatures Garr, Julak-Doom, Mobus, Akma'Hat, Xariona, and Poseidus has been adjusted to be commensurate to their rarity and invested effort.

Quest Bug Fixes

Agatha is now always present to provide quests for newly created undead characters.

Players properly sit on Bastia's back during the quest "To the Cliffs" on the Lost Isles.

There should no longer be phasing issues during the quest "Detonation" in Redridge Mountains.

"Blackriver Skirmish" in Grizzly Hills now awards Honor Points.

The vehicle for the quest "Tailgunner!" in Uldum now aims in the correct direction.

Races

The gnomish racial ability, Escape Artist, is no longer affected by the global cooldowns triggered by other abilities.

The human racial ability, Every Man for Himself, has a new spell effect.

Race Bug Fixes

Worgen females have learned how to laugh out loud.

User Interface

Like the Focus Frame, the character Unit and Target Frames can now be unlocked and moved to one's content.

Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.

Targets and focus targets now display on the mini-map.

Moved Video and Sound to a new "Options" screen.

Added a network category to the new Options screen and included the two network checkboxes.

The Network category contains the options "Optimize network for speed" and "Enable IPv6 when available". "Optimize network for speed" will be enabled by default, and will send packets more frequently at the cost of higher bandwidth. The higher bandwidth may lead to disconnects for some players who have limited bandwidth. Players getting disconnected frequently should try unchecking this box.

Visual Settings Updates

Removed the red bar preventing the overall graphics slider from going to ultra based on computer specs.

When a player moves the overall slider to a setting that would have previously been prevented, any option that can't go as high as that setting will get the warning icon with a tooltip explaining why it can't go higher. For example: a player sets the overall slider to Ultra and the water setting can only go to Fair. The water setting would automatically switch to Fair.

Support for DirectX 11 can now be found in the Advanced tab of the Options screen.

At the login screen:

Moved the "Reset User Options" button from the popup window that appears when clicking Options to the actual Options window.

Clicking Options now goes directly to the Video tab of the Options screen.

This is huge for people who have found themselves capped on one or another of these currencies for a while now. I know for myself, I've ended up stockpiling heirlooms for characters I may or may not ever level just to keep below the JP cap. Now I can get serious about those last few PvP items I've been holding off picking up. I am surprised to see a valor-to-conquest conversion but not a conquest-to-valor one -- seems somewhat unfair, as it gives PvE players with access to a lot of valor points a way to jump into PvP but gives no such return for PvP players who want to get a leg up in PvE.

Keeping in mind it's the PTR and is always subject to change, of course, this should be a more interesting solution to point capping than we've seen before with trade goods and suchlike

Friday, April 1, 2011

As the popularity of the Guild Advancement system continues to rise, we realize an increasing number of players feel that the experience of finding an adequate guild continues to be daunting. To address this, we’re introducing an all-new Random Guild Finder! Players may use this new feature to queue for automatic guild placement. You’ll be placed with a random guild at the click of a button, allowing you to partake in whatever content they may or may not be doing. After being placed, you’ll receive a cooldown which will not allow you to leave the guild, or for them to remove you from the guild, for fourteen days. Get to know your new friends! We’re sure they’ll enjoy getting to know you. If the guild you’re automatically placed in does not exist on your current realm you’ll be automatically charged for a paid realm transfer and moved there.

Appearance Tab

Acknowledging the continued requests of our players, an Appearance tab has been added to the game! The Appearance tab will finally, at long last, allow players to customize the look of their non-combat pets. Simply summon a non-combat pet and use the Appearance tab to change its look to that of any of the other non-combat pets you own. Summon, customize, and play!

General

* Character armory profiles will now display current guild status: Solo, In a Guild, Looking for Guild, G-kicked, and It’s Complicated. In addition, character portraits now have the option to be displayed as a self-taken cellphone picture from in front of a bathroom mirror.

* To ensure The Burning Crusade starting zones remain consistent with the rest of Azeroth, it is once again no longer possible to fly in Azeroth.

* Dance Studio has been removed from the game due to lack of use.

* Vashj’ir is now 20% more disorienting.

* Players in capital cities will receive a 2-hour debuff “Homebody” that increases damage taken and reduces damage and healing given by 10% for every 10 minutes they’re within city limits. We hope this encourages something.

* The mouse can now no longer be used to turn player characters. In many cases, this gave certain players a slight advantage over those that used their keys to turn.

Classes: General

* Talents are now automatically chosen for a player based on the main specialization chosen.

* Due to player feedback regarding night elf, blood elf, and worgen “flippy” jumps, player characters can no longer jump.

Death Knights

* Hero Class improvements

o Death knights now earn slightly more experience and gold than other character classes.

o When using the Need Before Greed looting system, other players may not roll on loot until the Hero Class has chosen to pass.

o Whenever a player takes a screenshot of a boss kill or similar accomplishment, all death knight characters will appear slightly more prominent in the image.

o Death knight customer support tickets will always be handled before those of other players.

* Death knights are now required to murder an innocent seven times per week or suffer the “Going Soft” debuff, which reduces damage dealt by 15%.

* Death knights can now increase their damage by yelling KIAI into their microphone. Damage is increased by 10% for every 10dB.

Druids

* Druid forms are now considered vehicles, allowing one player to ride on the druid’s back while in any form, even their humanoid form.

* Scratching Post (legendary Feral staff), introduced in a recent patch, was created accidentally and has been removed.

* Different models have been added for male and female versions of Bear Form. The difference is subtle unless you know where to look.

* Druids no longer talk to Innkeepers to set their Hearthstone. They are instead now required to talk to Stable Masters.

* Aquatic and Travel Form were causing too much of a performance hit and have been replaced with lower poly models.

* Pets: regardless of what pet is actually tamed, these creatures will appear as either a wolf (Horde) or cat (Alliance) when in combat. In addition, we have implemented an exciting new cross-breeding system where players can mix pets of various families with unpredictable results. Be the first on your server to show off a Mothmonkey, Crocoliskchimera or Warp Crab (these will still appear as either a wolf/cat when in combat).

* In addition to their current spells, mage Mirror Images now can randomly cast Frost Nova, Ring of Frost, Portal: Dalaran, and Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Images. Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images…

* The coefficients of all mage cast time spells have been tweaked to be 15% more jaw-dropping.

* All archways, portals, portholes, and doorways now contain locked doors which require a rouge’s Pick Lock skill to open.

* Sleight of Hand now allows rouges to roll a perfect 100 on boss drops.

* Cheap Shot has a new more anatomically appropriate animation.

* Rouges are now required to pick up all of their blades after casting Fan of Knives before it can be used again.

* Rouges may now cast Stealth while Stealthed, entering the state of Double Stealth, which is not only stealthier than Stealth, but also causes the word stealth to cease to make sense to your brain. Stealth.

Shaman

* A healing tree has been added for shaman.

* Flame Shock, Earth Shock, Dot Shock and Frost Shock have all been combined into a new spell called Bus Shock. This ability is less exciting, less powerful and harder to use than equivalents of comparable classes, but it has a new icon.

* The Elemental tree is now the Elementary tree, and allows use of new abilities Eat Paste, Nap Time, and the Macaroni and Glitter Totem.

* The shaman now have a Totem Belt, allowing them to carry their totems with them at all times.

* All totem ranges reduced to 1 yard.

Warlocks

* Female warlocks are now correctly called witches.

* Warlocks and witches now take additional damage when fighting in direct sunlight.

* Demons now have a new resource system called Happiness. Torturing, mistreating or speaking harshly to a demon pet will reduce its happiness. The Succubus is an exception to this rule.

* Whenever 2 or more warlocks or witches appear in a raid together, the damage dealt by any mages in the raid decreases by 5%. This effect stacks up to 5 times.

* In addition to their current talent trees, warlocks and witches can now spend points in any mage talent tree as well.

* To make the Demonology tree feel more 'demony' warlocks and witches not specced into this tree will be unable to summon demon companions.

Warriors

* The Arms and Fury warrior hybrid tax is now slightly taxier than other hybrid taxes.

* A bug was discovered that prevented warriors from popping Enrage as intended. This has been fixed.

* Charge has been removed from the game.

* Warrior’s base movement speed has been increased by 300%.

* In addition to Throwdown’s knock down and stun effects, it will also inflict a horror effect.

* To improve the success rate of Heroic Leap, its range has been reduced to 3 yards.

* Quantum Leap (new ability) propels the warrior through time and space, allowing the warrior to take over the identity of an unknown character in an attempt to improve their life or prevent disaster. Cooldown 5 minutes.

Dungeons & Raids

* Firelands

o An attunement quest for Firelands is now available! In order to be eligible for the upcoming raid, players must first encounter Deathwing while he is randomly attacking a zone and collect his leavings. Epic quest lines will also need to be completed to collect the leavings from the other Aspects to combine them into the Patty of the Five Flights – the key to unlock the Elemental Plane of fire in the upcoming 4.2 patch.

* Invisible walls have been added around all harmful ground effects.

* All dungeon & raid bosses now have legs. If they already had legs, they got more legs.

* In order to make the Cataclysm expansion appeal to all players’ sense of nostalgia, shaman, druids and paladins may now only queue as healers when using the Dungeon Finder.

* To help ensure players are only using the Vote Kick feature for the greater good of the group, anyone who initiates a Vote Kick will be kicked themselves regardless if the vote passes or not.

* Ever a player favorite, the level-80 10- and 25-player raid of Icecrown Citadel is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

* Ever a player favorite, the level-85 10- and 25-player raid of The Bastion of Twilight is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

* Ever a player favorite, the level-85 10- and 25-player raid of Firelands is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

* Ever a player favorite, the level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon of Deadmines is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic 5-player dungeon.

Items

* All items have had a 65-100% reduction in Fun.

Professions

* Cooking

o A new recipe has been added to Cooking which can be very rarely found inside Deathwing’s leavings. [Recipe: Epic Meal Time] – Use: Set out an epic meal to feed your entire raid or party! Restores 192,000 health and 192,000 mana over 11 seconds. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become sick and “refund” all gained health and mana.

PvP

* All Arena teams must now contain the word “cleave” somewhere in their name.

* Resilience has been made more literal. Players with high resilience no longer take less damage in PvP, but now bounce when dropped.

* Azshara Crater is now no longer mentioned so players will stop asking about it.

* New Battleground brackets! To further promote fair play Battlegrounds are now bracketed for every single level. 10-10, 11-11, 12-12, … 77-77, 78-78, etc.

Quests & Creatures

* To ensure Orgrimmar and Stormwind are the premiere cities for Cataclysm, NPC’s have been removed from all other cities.

* All NPC’s now have a 25% chance to Dodge right-clicks.

* Due to the popularity of the “Save the Wee Animals” quest in Hyjal, all quests now include an element that requires you to pick up fleeing animals.

Races

* The Worgen “sniff” sound has been replaced by Rebecca Black’s hit single, Friday. The song will play in its entirety. Every time.

* The name of the draenei race has been adjusted to have 20% more vowels.

* Draeneie - The male draeneie laugh has been tweaked to be 7% more irritating.

* Female worgen have been cured of their curse and now have only a human form.

User Interface

* All spells and spell macros now have added RP-immersive elements built in that will transmit to all players automatically every time a spell is cast. These cannot be changed or disabled. Examples:

o Flash Heal: “%n raises her hands skyward and calls forth a beam of bright white light that penetrates deeply into the souls of her comrades, healing their wounds and urging them forth in battle!”

o Kick: “%n casually approaches you and dons a monocle before engaging you in a casual discussion concerning local politics and refined beverages. Eventually, the discussion grows heated, and he abruptly tosses his pipe at your feet.”

* The UI addon system has been converted from LUA to Scaleform. All addons will need to be recoded.

* Show/Hide pants has been added to the Interface Options menu.

* A slider has been added to allow scaling of shoulder armor size.

* To toughen players up for their encounters with dragons and demons, the in-game emote “/hug” has been removed from the game.

Super Cool Addon: DeathNote

As a healer, I am interested in what exactly happened when someone in my raid dies. As a healing lead, I’m really interested in what exactly happened when someone in my raid dies. Were they standing in the bad? Did the healer assigned to a tank not heal them? Did they pull aggro? Do I need to adjust assignments to get them more heals?

DeathNote is a fantastic addon I’ve just recently installed, and I love it to bits already.

What it Does

DeathNote is straightforward–it provides a clean, parsed browser of death events. Straight out of the box, it just works. You access the main death browser UI by right-clicking on any unit from, and choosing “Show Death Note” from the menu.

This will open the UI seen above at the post header. On the surface, that’s a lot of information at first, but let’s go through it. On the far left, you have a list of all the recorded death events. By default, they are sorted by the player, and timestamped. You can also choose to sort overall by time, to your preference. Hovering over any of the names in this column will display a tooltip showing the last line in the log, aka the killing blow. Selecting any of these death events will display the relevant information on the right side of the DeathNote UI, which is separated into 5 columns.

The leftmost column displays the time–by default this is displayed as the amount of time in seconds before the player died. Clicking on the title at the top of any column will cycle through the display options, in this case seconds from death or real time. Personally, I find seconds from death to be a lot more useful for looking back to see what happened and how quickly. Real time may be more useful if you are trying to correlate events with another player or in another log. Hovering over each line in this column will display a tooltip with the other time format; i.e if you are showing real time, the tooltip will display seconds to death.

The next column, “HP” will show you are bar representing what percentage of health the player had at the time of each event line. Again, clicking on the column title will cycle through your options, or you can click on the gear icon in the upper right of the ui for a menu. HP format options include bar display, absolute health, percentage health, or absolute/maximum. I prefer looking at the bar format because it’s visually very easy to tell how alive they were, as well as spot the point where they were full or nearly so, and how quickly it went downhill. Hovering over each line will display the players health information in “absolute/maxhp (%)” format as well.

Column three, “Amount”, displays the actual value of damage or healing the player took, or if you’re displaying aura changes (as is on by default) whether it was a buff or debuff. This is very handy for seeing the scale of incoming damage and heals. There’s no display options to cycle here, but hovering over each line will display the combat log line in the tooltip.

The spell column is super nifty. On the surface, it will show you what it was that did any damage or healing to the target, by spell name. Useful for knowing what exactly hit your tank for 89,000 damage, but that’s not all folks. Let’s show them what’s behind door number three! If you click on any particular spell name, it will also highlight all other lines of that spell in the browser.

Here, we can see the highlighting of each hit of Electric Instability from phase 3 of Twilight council. If you click on a particular heal, you can use this highlight to see, for instance, how often a healer was landing a particular direct heal on a target. Hovering over a spell name will show you the spell’s tooltip.

Lastly, the source column tells you who did the spell from column four. Again, the hover here will show you the tooltip for the actor, and a click will highlight all those lines in the UI.

Why You Care

You care because finding out why people died can help make changes to prevent it in the future. It can help you identify either gaps in healing coverage, or people who are not on the ball with maintaining their assignments. It can tell you whether or not you had the time to land heals to save someone’s life, or if they stood in the stupid and caused their own deaths. You can also use this information to identify that the incoming damage was unavoidable or not, and if it wasn’t, if the damage is high enough that the target needs more healers focused on them. For instance, I used DeathNote to see that when the tank I was assigned to healing on Heroic Halfus attempts didn’t die because I was being a bads, but because they took 273,000 damage in 6.5 seconds. As a result, we tightened up cooldown use, and had one of our raid healers help watch this tank closer.

Not only does a robust death browser like DeathNote let you see healing and damage, it allows you to see buffs. You can see that a rejuvenation dropped and was not refreshed in a timely manner. You can see whether or not the tank popped one of their cooldowns. It’s information in all its glory displayed to you in an incredibly usable format.

Sharing the Data

Reporting the data to others is ridiculously easy. You can right-click on any line in the UI, and meet with the report menu:

“Report Style” allows you to choose from a compact or combat log line format, and “Send report from this line” does exactly what it says–and the menu allows you to choose exactly where the report will be sent, to include specifying a whisper target, as well as letting you chose from any of the custom chat channels you’ve joined. The report it sends can be somewhat spammy, so use with discretion. But if you’re reviewing a tank death in your healer or officer channels, being able to quickly send this information to others can be extremely helpful in analyzing events. If you are going to do a lot of reporting to chat channels, I’d suggest using the compact format, as well as using the configuration options to remove a lot of the spammy buff loss lines that appear at the end as a player has died, or using consolidation features to combine multiple damage or healing events.

Configuration Options

Hey, speaking of those configuration options… DeathNote is set up in a way that you can install the addon and immediately use it as-is, but there are a fair amount of configuration options for the display, collection, and dissemination of information that can prove rather useful.

At the top of the Death Note browser, there is a little orange triangle you can expand to view various filter options for the display. In order to obtain a more concise view, especially for reporting to chat, removing some of the buff gains and losses will cut down on a lot of clutter. The Damage and Healing tabs give you options to consolidate consecutive hits or heals. For example, instead of seeing 8 different lines showing you how your add tank on Nefarian got clobbered by all the adds they’re kiting, it’d show you a single line for a melee hit (x8). Similarly, it’ll combine multiple consecutive HoT ticks, which is great for turning a page of lifebloom ticks into a single line with a cumulative heal total. Alternately, you can use the threshold sliders to hide events under a certain amount, allowing you to remove something like Healing Stream Totem spam. When consolidate information, it will display a range of times, or a list of combined heals, which may go outside the default column width, but the entire browser window, as well as individual columns can be resized.

Lastly, one of my favorite options the ability to turn on automatic announcements of deaths.

If done appropriately, it’s super awesome. The first night I ran with DeathNote installed and announcements set to whisper, the raid leader warned people that it was on, and what was going to happen. At the end, we asked for feedback about the mod, and our crew was overwhelmingly positive about it, at least the ones that spoke up. If you turn this option on, when someone dies, you will send them a single line whisper with the event that killed them.

I conscripted a friend to demonstrate the tell, since I didn’t get a screenshot during the raid. One of the comments a guildie made about the announcement tells was “And it’s not spammy at all!” And it’s not, to the individual getting the tell. If you are the arbiter of deaths, it can get a little spammy on the outgoing end, but that’s a price I am completely willing to pay in exchange for making our raiders aware of what caused their deaths. By only sending someone the last line, it’s not always going to paint the whole picture; someone who’s been standing in lava the whole time can still get finished off by an unavoidable boss mechanic, but it is usually relevant. The “Announces/10 seconds” throttle setting can also help cut down on your outgoing tellspam. If that many people are dying close together, it’s likely a common event and things are headed towards a wipe very quickly.

Information is a Tool

DeathNote provides a lot of lovely information, and information is a beautiful thing. But it’s also just a tool, and any tool can be used to bludgeon people over the head as opposed to performing a useful function. Just keep in mind that if you’re looking over logs to analyze what your healers are doing to not just use it as a means to harp on them for not landing a heal in the 2.6 seconds that a tank died, but rather to troubleshoot and instruct. There’s feasible limits for reaction time, and what people can do to save someone. A tank that goes from full to dead in 2-5 seconds without getting a direct heal likely doesn’t mean that your tank healer was inattentive. With their tank at full, your healer may have used that moment to refresh a buff, drop a totem, or recast a Healing Rain on the shared tank position.

Problems are going to look like a tank that slowly spent 10-15 seconds dying without getting heals, especially if it happens chronically. You’ll also have to consider the class when you’re analyzing heals. A Shaman or Paladin on a tank should demonstrate regular use of their direct heals, but if you have a Druid assigned to a tank, and they’re mightily spamming Healing Touch, but are letting their HoTs drop, that’s still an issue. A Disc Priest may show gaps in direct heals, but if you look at buff gains, you’ll see that these gaps coincide with shield use. Analyzing the deaths of random raid members as opposed to a tank with dedicated healing may take a little more finesse. A death log will show the people who didn’t get enough heals and died, but it won’t show you the other people your raid healer was saving at that time.

You will always get a better reaction by approaching someone as a partner to solve an issue instead of just letting them know they’re a problem. If you start a conversation with one of your healers with a question, for example “Hey, can you tell me what was going on when [tank] died?” you’ll get more constructive work done than demanding to know why they had 2.6 seconds between refreshing rejuvenation, or why they didn’t heal someone for 5 seconds. Odds are, a decent healer knows that they let something drop, and will tell you what the problem was, and how they’ll fix it. If they don’t, you can use the log to instruct them on what sort of things might have been possible to change events.